Comelec chief fails to get CA nod

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Appointments (CA) bypassed yesterday President Duterte’s nomination of Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Sheriff Abas as the poll body’s chairman.

The CA also bypassed on Wednesday the nomination of Agrarian Reform Secretary John Castriciones.

Bypassing takes place when Congress adjourns session without the CA approving the nominations or appointments. Lawmakers adjourned for their seven-week Lenten vacation on Wednesday night, though based on their calendar of sessions, the official adjournment starts tomorrow.

Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano lll, CA majority leader, said yesterday the President would have to issue new appointments to Abas and Castriciones.

“The appointments take effect immediately since they are made while Congress is on recess. If they are issued while we are in session, they take effect only when we confirm them,” he said.

Also bypassed was the nomination of Omar Mohamad Fajardo as ambassador to Iraq.

Castriciones was a former undersecretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government. Prior to his DILG appointment he was involved in the presidential campaign of then Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte in 2016.

He was one of three DILG undersecretaries whose complaint became the basis for the President to fire then secretary Ismael Sueno. Subsequently, Sueno said the reasons for his dismissal were not clear to him.

The CA committee on agrarian reform conducted a hearing on the appointment of Castriciones on Wednesday but failed to endorse him in view of the opposition of Rep. Tom Villarin of party-list group Akbayan.

Villarin told a news conference on Tuesday that the DAR secretary-designate lacks the background and experience his job requires.

He said the 30-year-old agrarian reform program needs a steward with deep understanding of its problems and the requirements of program beneficiaries.

Another party-list lawmaker, Aniceto Bertiz lll, who represents overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), is opposing the nomination of ambassador Fajardo who is a political appointee.

In a letter to CA foreign affairs committee chairman Sen. Panfilo Lacson, Bertiz said he was registering his reservation on Fajardo’s designation based on the complaints of more than 300 of his constituents who are former and current OFWs and job applicants.

“My constituents accuse Mr. Fajardo of large-scale illegal recruitment and estafa. According to their signed statements, Mr. Fajardo conspired with a certain Lucia Manansala. They allegedly promised the complainants jobs as factory workers, cooks, waitresses and managers in New Zealand in 2014. They were never deployed,” he said.

Bertiz said Manansala supposedly collected P24,000 to P26,000 from each applicant.

The applicants filed criminal cases against Manansala in 2016 and she was arrested and arraigned in February 2017, he added.

He informed Lacson that Fajardo has denied in his social media posts his supposed involvement in Manansala’s activities.

However, he said Ronald Francis Olmeda, the husband of one of the alleged illegal recruitment victims, could attest that he “served as driver for both Miss Manansala and Mr. Fajardo during their out-of-town recruitment trips.”

He said one victim, who is a relative of the ambassador-designate, could testify on the relations between Fajardo and Manansala.

“These are serious allegations. In the spirit of fairness and due process, we pray that the committee would provide Mr. Fajardo with the opportunity to face his accusers, the OFW sector and committee members in order to properly defend himself,” Bertiz said in his letter to Lacson.